So we should be relieved the Spring Statement wasn’t a major fiscal event packed with tax changes, like her awful autumn Budget.
Sadly, the relief may prove short-lived.
Most analysts expect she’ll be back for more taxes in October. That’s less than seven months away.
Today’s performance was a defiant one, boasting about her brilliance while refusing to take responsibility for her many, many howlers.
Her most controversial move, the £4.8billion cut to welfare benefits, was heavily trailed in advance.
As was the hugely embarrassing decision by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to halve its 2025 GDP growth forecast from 2% to 1%.
No doubt these two nasties were released early to allow Reeves to talk up her threadbare achievements.
Most of which won’t materialise until 2029/30. If they ever do.
She made a lot of noise about the OBR’s projection that disposable incomes will rise almost twice as fast as forecast last autumn, making the average family £500 better off.
No mention, of course, that much of that will be swallowed by tax, thanks to her continued freeze on income tax thresholds.
At least she didn’t extend the freeze from 2028 to 2030, as rumoured. Although she may in her autumn Budget.
Reeves did nothing to soften last October’s tax onslaught, dashing hopes that she might mitigate the inheritance tax (IHT) raid on businesses, farmers and pensions.
Her planned £25billion of National Insurance (NI) hikes will kick in from April as planned. Profits will fall, jobs will go, businesses will shutter, growth will stall… but that won’t stop Reeves.
Happily, she didn’t slash the Cash ISA allowance to £4,000 as rumoured, but savers haven’t escaped yet.
Reeves is now lining up a full ISA review. Which means the Cash ISA allowance could still be cut, dealing a real blow to savers, especially pensioners who rightly prefer to avoid risk.
She didn’t attack pensions, inheritances, stamp duty, buy-to-let landlords or fuel duty. For that, we can be grateful. But all could be in back play come the autumn.
No British government has balanced the books in 22 years. So Reeves’s claim that we will be £10billion in the black by 2030 lacks credibility.
The Budget left her with just £9.9billion of fiscal headroom. Which quickly turned into deficit of £4.1billion, as Budget tax hikes destroyed growth.
After all the spin, the economy is right where it started – on a knife edge. Having eaten up her fiscal headroom once, Reeves likely to do it again.
The autumn Budget is shaping up to be brutal for taxpayers. Just like the last one.
